The Ruins of Tarramyre
The Ruins of Tarramyre scenario is a special, replayable multiplayer scenario, the first one of this type. Requirements: To be able to access this scenario, make sure you've completed "The Ashen Faces" adventure in the common room of the Goblinclaw Inn Description: It seems that the disciples of Joloreth have taken a particular interest in something in the shattered remains of the once-great Vorenthan temple... Rewards: Experience rewarded for participating in this scenario is available in the "windowless building with the blue door" in Hawklor, Talinus, or Trithik. See below for more information about how much you can get. Dated warning Almost everything about multiplayer scenarios have been changed and tweaked several times since their launching. All information contained on this page must be taken with a grain of salt, since may probably be outdated. You can check the very long thread about it in the forum, which explains almost everything in detail (if you're in the mood of browsing over 60 pages). Since there has been so many changes, there are many conflicting reports. The ruins Map of the ruins *You enter from the South. *Northwest and West (Red): Hall of Three Knights *Northeast and East (Yellow): Ruins of an ancient building. Encounter with the female Kurund assasin *Northwest and Northeast (or vice versa) (Green): Resting spot. You can recover 25 SP and 2 NvR for every 5 seconds spent resting here. * From the resting spot: North (Black): Ring of obelisks, where the battle takes place. * You can hear the din of the battle from any point of the ruins. Random encounters in the ruins As you explore the ruins, you can encounter several enemies: * 2-3 Rotting Acolytes * 2-3 Armoured Ghouls * 2-3 Black-Robed Kurund The Greater Demon Xarakk This is the first multiplayer battle in Sryth, where you can see for yourself other characters in action, and team up with them to end the menace of the Greater Demon Xarakk, a servant of the dark god Joloreth. WARNING: This is an extremely dangerous fight. Adventurers should carry a Quickstone with stored 20's, the Demonscourge, and 3 Blessings of Protection, and watch closely their SP at all times. High values of NvR and SP, and a minimum of MR 110 with the Demonscourge are recommended. Also it's recommended to have at least one not-resistable combat power at 60+. Destruction gets resisted frequently. Even with that, the demon can kill you with a certain ease in a little stroke of bad luck (it has special attacks over 60+ points of damage). Battle mechanics Before the battle This event resets randomly after the end of each battle. The actual reset time it's random, and can be from little more than 1 hour up to 8 hours. Shortly after the battle ends, a timer indicating how long to the next battle it is shown both in the ruins and in the Adventure Finder. When the time of the apparition of Xarakk is close, the time changes to a "Smoke rises in the ruins", and once the event begins to: "Battle rages in the ruins". Once the timer changes, character at the circle of obelisks in the ruins will begin to notice a gentle breeze, then a chilling one. After that a thin column of smoke will appear, and after that a thick one, several thick ones and at last the Greater Demon Xarakk. That screen refreshes automatically each minute until the battle begins, so you can wait quietly for the demon to appear without having to check repeatedly. Flavor text indicating the closeness of the demon: A cool, gentle breeze stirs the air as it drifts slowly across the top of the hill. A chill wind sweeps across the top of the hill, sending a shiver down the length of your spine. Now and again, thin wisps of pungent, black smoke rise out of the ground at the centre of the ring of stones. A thin column of pungent, black smoke rises out of the ground at the centre of the ring of stones and drifts slowly up into the air. A thick column of pungent, black smoke rises into the air, seemingly out of the ground, at the centre of the ring of stones. Ghostly whispers surround you as you gaze upon the circle of obelisks. Several columns of thick, pungent, black smoke rise into the air, seemingly out of the ground, at the centre of the ring of stones. Your blood runs cold as the sound of distant, ghostly chanting suddenly reaches your ears. Engagements and health When you approach the battle, you must roll a random number to get near Xarakk undetected. Thievery (x 0,25), Woodsmanship (x0,25), Luck (x0,5), Mind (x0,5), Agility (x1) and Body (x1) help you. You must roll at least 100. If you don't reach 100, the demon launches an attack. You can get 16 XP for Elementalism (50+), Fortification (50+), Shadow Magic (50+) or try to dodge. To dodge, you roll another random number. Agility (x1), Luck(x0,5), and Mind (x1) will help. You must get 75. If you fail, you'll lose some SP, from 7 to nearly 50. Once passed this obstacle, you might or might not encounter another one: a creature emerging from a random Shadow Path that opens near the demon. You can encounter: * Chamber of Bone (17+ XP) * 2 Blackhorn Beetles * 3 Undead Mages * 3 Skeletal Guardians At last, you reach the mighty demon. Unless your MR without the +40 bonus vs demons is around 160, you'll see him black. You can engage him for several rounds. Then you will be forced to retreat, and wait a pause of 20 seconds before engaging the demon again. The number of rounds started being 8, fixed, then a random number between 7 and 13, then again increased to be from 15 to 21 rounds of combat. You can go down to the resting spot before engaging the demon again, if you have a fast connection you'll be able to rest for 5 or 10 seconds, go back and still have a couple of spare seconds to wait. The fight goes on like that, engagement after engagement, until one of the adventurers present scores the killing blow. Then the battle is over. During the battle you'll be able to see Xarakk's current health descriptively in the circle of obelisks and just before each engagement. The levels of health are: * Relatively unscathed * Only slightly wounded * Only moderately wounded * Wounded * Substantially Wounded * Heavily wounded * Severely wounded * Critically wounded * Near death * Hovering on death's doorstep Attacks of Xarakk The greater demon has several normal attacks. Each of these will deal the usual Combat damage, based on your roll. * The massive, black-winged demon swipes at you with its clawed hand * Xarakk roars as he stomps at you with his massive, clawed foot * Xarakk bellows with rage as he reaches out for you with his fiery grasp Also, Xarakk can (and will, frequently) use several strong powers: * You suddenly feel drained... Xarakk has siphoned away some of your Nevernal Reserve... (2-6 NvR) * Xarakk turns his haunting gaze toward you and you feel your life force rapidly draining away... * Xarakk thrusts his clawed hand toward you and a broad arc of black lightning leaps through the air, striking you squarely in the chest... ** You're unable to resist the attack. ** You manage to resist the worst of the attack. * Xarakk turns his chilling gaze upon you and you feel your every nerve begin to tingle... ** You've been paralyzed by Xarakk and will be unable to act during the next round of combat. ** You manage to resist the demon's attempt to paralyze you. It's still unclear if some of these special attacks have another effects other than hurting you. It's been suggested that Xarakk heals himself with the life force that he drains from adventurers. To confirm or to refute this affirmation is near to impossible, though. The damage you can receive from these specials range roughly from 40 to 64, halved if you manage to resist the worst of the attack. Consequently, you must remain very, very vigilant of your SP. You can flee from the battle, from the fourth round onwards. If you flee you appear directly on the rest spot. The damage you score against the demon stays registered even if you flee or die. Various facts * Xarakk has variable MR, SP, and special attacks. MR is around 9+ at MR 166, but varies up to 10 points more than that. Even in the same battle, it changes between encounters. * When there are many adventurers, Xarakk's SP rises. The base value is about 50000 SP, but there are reports up to 110000 SP. * Powers seem to fizzle more often than normal, but as it's a long battle and powers get used often, could be an observer bias. Known bugs * If Xarakk deals enough damage to kill you (most probably with a powerful special attack) on the same round you are forced to retreat, your health will not be taken into account, so you can retreat from the engagement with negative SP. * In rare occurrences, Xarakk may die before time, even if he had more than half his SP left. The GM is usually so kind as to reset the timer and let the adventurers repeat the battle, leaving untouched the rewards given for the short battle. Experience rewards We are still collecting data about EXP given by Xarakk in the Ruins of Tarramyre thread in the forum. The character who deals the killing blow gets 256 General XP and 128 XP to all skills and powers. This amount is fixed, and has not changed since the first installment of the scenario. All characters who participate in the battle receive some amount of General XP in the "windowless building with the blue door" in Hawklor, Talinus, or Trithik. This amount has been subject to several changes, but is believed to be a minimum of 64 XP, only for showing up, and then onwards it depends on how much damage you dealt (in percentage of the total SP of the demon). Correlations established so far are: * The absolute minimum you can get is 64 EXP * The maximum reward reported was 2016 EXP * It seems that the SP Xarakk has, the number of adventurers involved in the battle, and the duration of it, DON'T affect the rewards. * All EXP rewards are sums of powers of 2, from 2^5 (32) to 2^10 (1024). It IS possible, in theory, to get more, if an adventurer killed the demon alone or with little help. * Rewards vary with each battle, but remain coherent among participants in the same battle. * When the battle is finished, the total SP of the demon is compared to the damages scored. Let's suppose Xarakk's SP was 50000. Adventurer A scored 10000 damage, and adventurer B scored 5000, so A dealt 20% of damage, and B dealt 10%. Percentages are rounded to the nearest integer, so if you deal 1,51% and I deal 2,49%, we'll both get the same EXP (corresponding to 2%), but if you deal 1,49% (rounds to 1%) and I deal 1,51% (rounds to 2%), I'll get more. * There is an unknown factor, decided for each battle, which ranges from 15 to 80 in the reports analyzed, that determines how much EXP is awarded for each 1% of damage. That value is multiplied for the percentage of damage each adventurer scored to establish his/her reward. Then the value is assigned to the nearest integer multiple of 32, and that's the amount of EXP the adventurer gets. If the result is lower than 64, the reward is defaulted to 64XP. If the factor is, for example, 45, an adventurer who scores a 13% of damage gets (45*13=585), rounded to the nearest multiple of 32 (576) EXP. * The rules for that "Rounding to nearest multiple of 32" are simple: Each multiple of 32 gets assigned 32 values: from itself-16 to itself +15. So, for example, rewards from 80 to 111 are resolved to 96 XP. Item rewards During the succesive engagements, after each time you retreat from the battle, there is a chance that you would find one of three special weapons available only in the Ruins of Tarramyre. No special action is needed to receive them on the inventory. The drop rates are not clear, but it's usual to need to participate in several battles to get each item, although there are reports of receiving several items on the same battle. Whenever you get an item, it's extremely recommended to exit the ruins and save. You can use the opportunity to rest, too. Iron weapons of Tarramyre Note: When you find one of these weapons, it looks at your inventory to see what other Tarramyre items you have. If you drop the weapons you get in one of your dwellings, you may very well receive the same item twice, which is useless. So make sure you are carrying all of the weapons you may have found before battling Xarakk. Once you get the three of them, you can take them to the stone building to the west of the ruins (marked red, Hall of the Three Knights), where you'll be able to transform them into a powerful item, the Finger of Dread. The Finger of Dread Example of description with no onyx bands and at level 1, just as you get it: Item 1301: Finger Of Dread * Class: Misc * Enc: 0 This long, gnarled finger of bone is an ancient weapon of great power. Presented to you by the three undead master warriors in the ruins of Tarramyre, this wand, formerly the finger of a greater demon, becomes a wand of unspeakable might when fitted with the three onyx bands that once adorned it. The Finger must be equipped with a total of 3 onyx bands before its power can be used in combat. The Finger currently bears no onyx bands. The Finger is currently at level 1''' and emits a faint, erratic hum. You may examine this item in a SAFE location for more options. Example of description at level 5 and with the 3 onyx bands (1 charge has been used): '''Finger Of Dread * Class: Misc * Enc: 0 This long, gnarled finger of bone is an ancient weapon of great power. Presented to you by the three undead master warriors in the ruins of Tarramyre, this wand, formerly the finger of a greater demon, becomes a wand of unspeakable might when fitted with the three onyx bands that once adorned it. The Finger must be equipped with a total of 3 onyx bands before its power can be used in combat. The Finger currently bears a total of 3''' onyx bands. The Finger is currently at level '''5 and emits a deep, steady hum. You may use the finger a total of 2''' more times before the bands it bears disintegrate. You may examine this item in a SAFE location for more options. When you examine it in a SAFE location, it brings this message into the main screen (example taken at Level 1, with only 1 onyx band): '''The Finger of Dread This long, gnarled finger of bone is an ancient weapon of great power. Presented to you by the three undead master warriors in the ruins of Tarramyre, this wand, formerly the finger of a greater demon, becomes a wand of unspeakable might when fitted with the three onyx bands that once adorned it. The Finger must be equipped with a total of 3 onyx bands before its power can be used in combat. The Finger currently bears a total of 1''' onyx bands. The Finger is currently at level '''1 and emits a faint, erratic hum. You may infuse your own General Experience into the Finger, and raise its level (to a maximum of 5). The damage the finger does to your enemies when used during combat increases with each new level. The Finger of Dread must be outfitted with three onyx bands before it can be used in combat. Once it bears the three onyx bands, it may be used three times, before the bands disintegrate. After the bands have disintegrated, they must be replaced before the Finger of Dread can be used again. You may discover the onyx bands for the finger while battling Xarakk in the ruins of Tarramyre. To use the finger in combat, select it from the item drop-down box before clicking on your attack mode for that round. Important: The Finger of Dread is a powerful, but mysterious instrument of battle. Very little is known about this legendary item. Anyone who seeks to use the artifact against their enemies must know that will likely be susceptible to a small portion of its fearsome wrath... The Finger of Dread is the most powerful harming device known so far in Sryth, in terms of controlled, guaranteed damage per round. Even if some weapons can deal comparable amounts of damage with their special powers, those specials are random, while the power of the Finger can be unleashed any time at will. UPDATE: 2008-10-12: Now, after each use, the Finger becomes useless for 5 minutes of real time. If you try to use it again during this period, you get a message "The Finger of Dread is still regathering its might. Nothing happens." You make a Normal attack like if it were used correctly. This meter cannot be avoided. Even if you quit and log in back again, the meter still prevents you from using the Finger for the rest of the time. The meter only registers time, not number of rounds or battles. You can even use it in two consecutive rounds, provided you're ready to wait 5 minutes between rounds The onyx bands for the Finger of Dread can be obtained in the same way that the Iron Items: they are found encircling the Finger when retreating from an engagement with the demon. No action is needed to pick up them. Once the three bands are completing the Finger, you can use its power for three times. At the third time, the bands disintegrate, and the only way to get them back is to fight the demon again. You can see the number of charges left in the description on the item on the inventory and after each use in battle. The Finger of Dread increases the damage it deals as it rises in level. The levels can be increased with General EXP, the same way as The Phantom Items and the Glittering Ice Shield. Right now the Finger can be trained to Level 5. Also, when you use it in combat, once equipped with the 3 onyx bands, it shows the following messages: * "An overpowering sense of dread comes over you as you level the Finger of bone at your enemy. Your foe takes '''XXX' points of damage..."'' * "The powerful aura of fear the surrounds the Finger has taken its toll on you. You take '''XX' points of damage."'' The exact amount of damage you deal/receive depends on the level of the Finger, and it's random (and equiprobable) between some fixed limits. Here is a table of values extracted from actual reports (at least 60 reports for each possible situation, so they're very well researched; check the Technical Tarramyre thread at the forum). Seems like the finger does special damage to demons, or maybe it's only to Xarakk: see this report. Example of a fight (2 minutes) * < 1 minute ago ... Stormdancer, wielding (The Demonscourge) and calling upon her mastery of (Shadow Magic) dealt 61 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight moderately wounded.... * < 1 minute ago ... Kieran, wielding (The Demonscourge) and calling upon his mastery of (Necromancy ,Shadow Magic) dealt 121 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight severely wounded.... * < 1 minute ago ... AerylSilverheels, wielding (The Demonscourge) dealt 190 points of damage to Xarakk and escaped the fight unscathed.... * < 1 minute ago ... Tamril, wielding (The Demonscourge) and calling upon her mastery of (Shadow Magic) dealt 175 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight slightly wounded.... * < 1 minute ago ... Sigurd, wielding (The Demonscourge) dealt 125 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight severely wounded... * < 1 minute ago ... Krylinym was slain in combat by Xarakk. * < 1 minute ago ... Presto, wielding (The Demonscourge) dealt 153 points of damage to Xarakk, but had to flee from combat... * < 1 minute ago ... Ares, wielding (Shimmering Silver Longsword) dealt 144 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight severely wounded.... * < 1 minute ago ... Shadowblack, wielding (The Demonscourge) and calling upon his mastery of (Gating ,Necromancy) dealt 302 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight moderately wounded... * < 1 minute ago ... Dragonbane, wielding (The Demonscourge) and calling upon his mastery of (Necromancy) dealt 149 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight moderately wounded.... * 1 minute ago ... Kieran, wielding (The Demonscourge) and calling upon his mastery of (Necromancy ,Shadow Magic) dealt 206 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight heavily wounded.... * 1 minute ago ... AerylSilverheels, wielding (The Demonscourge) dealt 211 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight moderately wounded.... * 1 minute ago ... Stormdancer, wielding (The Demonscourge) and calling upon her mastery of (Shadow Magic) dealt 147 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight moderately wounded.... * 1 minute ago ... Minnow, wielding (The Demonscourge) dealt 158 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight moderately wounded.... * 1 minute ago ... Sigurd, wielding (The Demonscourge) dealt 168 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight slightly wounded.... * 1 minute ago ... AerylSilverheels, wielding (The Demonscourge) dealt 173 points of damage to Xarakk and escaped the fight unscathed.... * 1 minute ago ... Dragonbane, wielding (The Demonscourge) and calling upon his mastery of (Necromancy) dealt 207 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight slightly wounded.... * 2 minutes ago ... Tamril, wielding (The Demonscourge) and calling upon her mastery of (Shadow Magic) dealt 97 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight moderately wounded.... * 2 minutes ago ... Shadowblack, wielding (The Demonscourge) and calling upon his mastery of (Gating ,Necromancy) dealt 171 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight severely wounded.... * 2 minutes ago ... AerylSilverheels, wielding (The Demonscourge) dealt 172 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight slightly wounded.... * 2 minutes ago ... Sigurd, wielding (The Demonscourge) dealt 87 points of damage to Xarakk and left the fight slightly wounded.... Fights with Xarakk usually take from 30 minutes to a little more than an hour (but when there are few adventurers present, they can reach two hours). In this example you can see how the game reports the status and achievements of the other characters as they fight, remarking also on the adventurers slain and the ones who fled from combat. Category:Multiplayer battles Category:Locations Category:Quests